


Baffled Queen Composing

by the_moonmoth



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Episode: The Siege, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-09
Updated: 2005-08-09
Packaged: 2017-10-14 09:19:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/147750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_moonmoth/pseuds/the_moonmoth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A cold and broken Hallelujah</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baffled Queen Composing

**Author's Note:**

> That tricksy Danvers dumped her spiffy music, and I got a bit obsessed, and this is the result. I'm not sure that I've managed to say what I wanted to, but it's now at the point where the fiddling has to stop..

_It's not a cry that you hear at night  
It's not someone who's seen the light  
It's a cold and broken Hallelujah_

***

After hearing of Peter's death and the destruction of the satellite, after ordering McKay and Miller back to Atlantis, after making the city-wide announcement of their failure, Elizabeth is grimly satisfied that her voice hasn't wavered, that her eyes don't swim. Her mouth, though -- she presses her lips together firmly, forcing it into a straight, emotionless line. It's the line she can't cross right now, can't bend or even turn at the edges.

Silently she steps up to her office, to pack away her laptop, and she closes the door behind her because she just needs a moment to think. And that funny way she's breathing, short and rapid -- it isn't crying because there aren't any tears. Her shoulders might shake but she isn't crying, because that isn't what will get her people through the night.

*

Radek interrupts her, letting himself into the office after a soft rap on the door. Her back's turned so for a moment she thinks she's escaped. Then she feels his hand on her shoulder, solid and warm, and she knows that somehow he's seen, and she has to squeeze her eyes shut against the sudden urgency to lean back into his touch.

But this thing, this tender, warm, wonderful thing that she can almost feel when he looks at her -- it could be everything. And that alone makes her step away, straighten herself back up and walk around him to the door.

She needs to be out there, and all the quiet compassion in his eyes won't make that go away.

*

Rodney runs down the stairs still in his boiler suit and she whispers, _Thank God_. It feels cold on her tongue, to be so glad, but it's perhaps the last thing to be thankful for this night, so she whispers it all the same.

And later, she will say these things, these small gratitudes, again and again as each team checks in as they should. She doesn't speak it out loud, but she says it nonetheless, feeling the words sight out through her eyes like searchlights.

Teyla survived the attack on her team. She seems to exist for this alone; she lives for their life. A queen, reduced from ruling to this narrow ambition: to find as many as possible of her people alive and still fighting. Sheppard wasn't aboard the jumper when it blew.

This is what she has to do to lead her people to survive: be thankful for each one that lives, and ignore the chill that clenches her gut and the little break in her heart for each time she hasn't been able to say it. _Thank God._


End file.
